Its been awhile but I’ve been vlogging and journalist.. here’s a blog!
Japan countdown: 14 Days!
Okay so I had this long post written in detail but I’ll give you the short story. Last night I re-watched my old DomoVlogs from when I lived in Japan (circa 2010), how they were maybe to honest, ignorant and immature. This led me to listening to old songs I made back in the day. Hearing how unpolished ignorant about happiness, money, love and life was a bit too real. While I still have a lot of growing up to do, I am not ashamed of past thoughts, but more importantly today I want to write about comfort.
Comfort is something I feel like most people aspire to achieve. Like success, comfort is relative and someone’s ceiling is another person’s floor. We were sold the dream that if we go to college and cross the finish line we would receive a piece of paper, a decent job at the least and be able to live comfortably. These were the bare minimums. I cannot say that this is not true, because with some help from my family, I was able to make this happen after a year or two. However, recently comfort has become my worst enemy.
If you have been following me you know my 3 goals this year are Good health, education and better financial decisions. Comfort costs a lot of money and can be time consuming. Its something that we strive for but once I figured out that settling down, buying a house, getting married, and having kids wasn’t the life for me, life had to be re-evaluated. Not that there is anything wrong with that life, its just not for me. I always wanted the freedom to express myself, and share my art with whomever would watch/listen. Aspiring for comfort also meant doing things I did not want to, and looking for acceptance from people that don’t necessarily matter. We find comfort in the things we buy, nice clothes, cars, art, furniture, acceptance etc. Not understanding to maintain this comfort we will dig us deeper and deeper into a life that we do not control. Rather a life that is controlled by our income, and outsiders.
From what I understand most Americans have the ability to sign a promissory note to get a loan for college, can finish undergrad, sign up for more loans go to graduate school, and make a living working somewhere that will pay them a decent if not good salary that will allow them to payback their loans with interest, put a down payment on a house, a car some nice toys to live…. Comfortable. I get it, people just want to be happy and by no means do I look down on these people, because I too at one time or another wanted to be these people. Now… nothing scares me more than becoming one of these people. I know for a fact this was not, and is not MY dream.
I HOPE I HAVN’T LOST YOU!
I know I just painted a really black and white picture. Everyone’s wants something different and I do my best not to judge. Furthermore by no means do I want to seem hypocritical when I apply to graduate school next year. I was like most people who graduated college in this race to change the world, get paid for it to buy toys and gain “success”. What is success if you are not doing what it is you want to be doing? “Victory to me is when you spend your time right…” Success is having the freedom and power to do what we want to do with your time. Vanity will not get me closer to that, a student loan will not get me closer to that, and unless it’s get a degree I want even a Masters degree will not get me closer to Freedom! To me life is about experiences and the more comfortable I live, the less life I will experience. There are those who would disagree, and would argue children are the greatest gift in life, and money will afford you those life experiences, but personally for me right here right now at 26… hard work, opportunity and artistic freedom have provided me the greatest experiences I’ve had thus far.
SOLUTION!
I made a vow to never complain without coming up with a potential solution. My solution is to continue to scale down my life, continue to be realistic with myself about what it is I need to do. Money is not everything, but it IS important. Also important is knowing your worth (but that’s a completely different discussion altogether). Saving money is even more important. Most of the people I grew up around didn’t inherit anything with any sort of monetary value. Some of them were lucky enough to inherited culture, traditions and family heirlooms. But the solution for me is to create that tradition, create that culture. I hope my road to Fuji inspires my future children, nieces and nephews, and their children to carry on tradition to go climb Mt. Fuji like my father did in 1988/’89. In my opinion the best way to hold myself accountable to creating my art and staying on my path of creativity, education, good health and better financial responsibility is to avoid living comfortable. Comfort is the enemy of dream chasing.
Stay focused stay hungry,
Domonique Meeks
AmbassadorNique Productions
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